E DUTY AND ADVANTAGES OF EDUCATING THE 


DEAF AND DUMB AND THE BLIND, 

~ I— 

A SERMON, 

PREACHED IN CHRIST CHURCH, STAUNTON, 

ON CHRISTMAS NIGHT, DEC. 25, 1842, 

BY THE 

ib wwo smmwm Wo iian 


PRINCIPAL OF THE DEAF MUTE DEPARTMENT 


OF THE 

VIRGINIA DEAF MUTE AND BLIND INSTITUTION, 




STAUNTON : 

PRINTED BY KENTON HARPER. 

1843 . 



THE DtJTY AND ADVANTAGES OF EDUCATING THE 
DEAF AND DUMB AND THE BLIND. 

— iofoi- 

A SERMON, 

jPREACHED Ifr CHRISt CllUKCH, STAUNTON, 

ON CHRISTMAS NIGHT, DEC. 25, 18#; 

BY THE 

smiMiPm iDo s'S’iLimBs' 

Principal of the deaf mute department 

Of THE 

Virginia deaf mute and blind institution. 

STAUNTON : 

Printed by kenton harper. 


1843 , 


-T'tii 

4sa 


' : •; : ■ ' v ' 



STAUNTON, December 26th, 1342. 

REV. JOS. D. TYLER : 

Dear Sir — The importance of educating the Deaf and Dumb 
and the Blind, was so ably and eloquently enforced in your sermon upon that 
subject last evening, that we are well assured its publication could not fail to 
excite in the minds and hearts of an enlightened community, a very general 
and propitious sympathy and interest in behalf of this truly afflicted portion of 
©ur fellow-citizens. 

We would, therefore, feel much gratified to have a copy of the sermon, with? 
your permission to publish it. 

Yours very respectfully , 

SAMUEL CLARKE, THOMAS J STUART, 

HUGH W. SHEFFEY, CHARLES H. LEWIS, 

BREEZE JOHNSON, CHESLEY KINNEY. 


STAUNTON, December 26th, 1842. 

Gentlemen — Your note asking for publication a discourse concerning the Blind 
and the Deaf, is welcomed by me with peculiar pleasure as an expression of 
interest in the cause which I have so much at heart. In complying with" 
your request, allow me to Hope that the facts presented in the sermon and 
which alone procured for it your favorable notice, may also incite many other 
benevolent hearts to commisserate and hands to aid those unfortunate Virginians 
whose blindness renders them so helplessly dependent, or whose privation of 
speech disables them from pleading, through any other channel, for that assis- 
tance without which they perish. Very respectfully, 

JOS*. D. TYLER. 

Messrs. Samuel Clarke, Esq. 

IbuGH W. Sheffey,- Esq. &c. 



ESTATE OF 
WILLIAM C. RIVES 
APRIL, 1940 


a sxifciaoK* 


Isaiah 29, IS. — And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and 
the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness. 


The subject of giving instruction to the blind and the deaf 
is not unwarrantably intruded upon an occasion like the pre- 
sent. The nativity o t him who came on an errand purely mer- 
ciful and full of good will to man, should always be graced by 
an especial remembrance of all those benefits which we owe to 
his mission of love. Instruction to the blind and the deaf is a 
fruit of Christianity. The heathen totally neglect them , in 
common wLh the sick poor, the aged pauper, the orphan, the 
insane, and every other form of human destitution and wretch- 
edness. Heathenism bears no fruit unto righteousness, and 
none even to the kindly, generous and philanthropic emotions 
of the heart. Such emotions may touch, but they do not sway 
the heathen bosom. Misery may be pitied, but it is not reliev- 
ed, among them. The day, therefore, which, in witnessing the 
birth of Christ, witnessed also the dawn of practical benevo- 
lence on earth, is a peculiarly appropriate occasion for com- 
memorating the commencement or progress of any enterprize 
which has for its object the supply of human want, or the alle- 
viation of human suffering. 

I need not labor to shew the adaptation of the prophetic lan- 
guage of the text -to the enterprize of teaching the deaf and 
dumb and the blind. Such an application of the prophecy may 
appear new to some — to none will it appear forced. Perhaps 
we have been accustomed to restrict its meaning to a general 
description of the gospel era — or to the personal residence of 
Christ on earth, when his voice “bade new music charm the un- 
folding ear,” and his finger “on the sightless eyeballs poured 
the day.” But ought it to be thus restricted ? Has it not a 
direct application to the two classes of unfortunates who are 


4 


specified in it ? Are they not primarily referred to r For eigh- 
teen centuries after the ascension of our Savior, no light what- 
soever was thrown by the lamp of instruction upon the moral 
3nd intellectual pathway of the deaf mute and the blind. Du- 
ring that long course of time, successive generations of the 
blind and the deaf, numbering, probably, at no period less than 
half a million of each, descended to the grave, unblessed by 
the promised benefits of the text. But a bright change has 
passed over their darkened prospects. The respective arts pf 
teaching the deaf and the blind were invented, through means 
of which the blessings of the prophecy redound to them. For 
half a century these curious arts have been carrying life, and light 
and joy, to thousands for whom the prophecy has had no other 
fulfilment. The day so full of gladness to these classes of our 
fellow- citizens has long cheered other sections of our common 
country. It has begun to dawn here also \yith gladness in its 
beams upon the long-neglected blind and deaf of Virginia. In 
an earlier part of the prophecy, the prophet complains that his 
vision h a d become like a book that is sealed, which the learned 
could notread, because it is sealed, and the unlearned could not 
read because they are ignorant. So is the word of God to the 
deaf mute and the blind. To the uneducated blind man, though 
acquainted wfith our language, the bible is practically a sealed 
book — and from the depths of their abject ignorance the deaf 
and dumb affeptingly and impressively tell you that they 
cannot read the book because they are unlearned. But thG sure 
promise of God at length unfolds for them the blessings wrapped 
qp in it for many ages. In the intellectual, moral, spiritual, 
the highest, the best sense, the deaf now hear the words of th,e 
book, and the blind can see out of obscurity and put of darkness. 
They who have witnessed the wondrous process by \yhiph thp 
touch is substituted for the sight, have observed, in that very 
process, a beautiful fulfilment of the prophecy to the blind. 
By the invention of raised letters adapted to the touch, a new 
avenue to the mind has been thrown open along which knowl- 
edge passes with such electric facility that, without exaggera- 
tion, the blind advance in their education about as fast as those 


5 


who enjoy the sense of sight. And thus the darkness which so 
long shrouded their minds, is made to pass away. The obscu- 
rity which from the beginning of the w r orld has brooded over 
their earthly prospects is dispelled. Out of the profoundest 
physical darkness, their minds now look out upon the boundless 
fields of human and divine knowledge, and expatiate freely o- 
yer all that man has ever learned or God revealed. 

To the deaf and dumb the fulfilment of the prophecy conveys 
benefits greater even than to the blind — for though the blind are 
more dependent and more helpless than the deaf, their moral 
and intellectual condition is by no means so deplorable. Blind- 
ness deprives no man, necessarily, of oral instruction, and com- 
pels no man to grow up in ignorance of his vernacular tongue. 
Blindness debars no man from hearing the proclamation of par- 
don through a crucified Savior. But deafness does all this and 
much more than this— insomuch that a person deaf from birth 
piay live and die in any Christian community profoundly igno- 
rant of all that the bible contains from the beginning to the 
end ; ignorant of the God that made him and of the Savior that 
redeemed him ; ignorant that the living principle within him dif- 
fers in any respect from that of the beasts that perish ; ignorant of 
the language spoken around him ; ignorant, therefore, of all that 
the human voice could teach, or that the human pen has written. 
To remove from the minds of the deaf and dumb films of igno- 
rance for ages deemed impenetrable to the light ol human and 
divine knowledge is a priceless benefit to that large and peculi- 
arly destitute class of our fellow- creatures— a benefit worthy of 
prophetic announcement, and worthy of the providential hand 
which has given that prophecy its fulfilment. But in the course 
of his providence working out such prophetic announcements, 
God is accustomed to make use of human agency. The deaf 
and the blind may be rescued from their deplorable state of ig- 
norance, degradation and misery — but if rescued at all, they 
must be rescued by the agency of their more highly favored fel- 
low-citizens. This is true ol human destitution, in all its mul- 
tiplied forms, over the whole earth— but it is emphatically true 
of the blind and the deaf. It is a striking peculiarity of both 


these forms of destitution, that more than any others, they are 
■withdrawn from public observation. The blind and the deaf 
are wholly dependent upon others to make known their wants 
and to plead their cause. They are generally found too among 
the poorer classes of society, and in this w T orld neglect is the 
natural lot of poverty. The necessity of establishing Institu- 
tions or making provision for their benefit, though felt by them 
far beyond the power of language to express, is yet not thrust 
upon the public attention so painfully or so noisily as the neces- 
sity for Asylums for the sick or the insane. The deaf and the 
blind have not, like the destitute of heathen lands, the aid of 
numerous and eloquent agents summoning the whole Christian 
community to their aid, and organizing countless Societies for 
their benefit. It is therefore that so many ages have passed away 
leaving the deaf and the blind unenlightened and almost unbene- 
fited even by Christianity itself. The good providence of God 
has at length opened a door for their admission into the temple 
of knowledge, and we are morally and religiously bound, bound 
as good men and good citizens, bound by common humanity, to 
take them by the hand and lead them in. We are warmly en- 
couraged to do it. The advantages derivable to the blind and 
the deaf from education are no longer contingencies. To go 
no farther than our own Stale, we have the pleasing evidence 
of our senses that two of the heaviest afflictions to which hu- 
manity is liable may be assuaged, and two of her sorest priva- 
tions in a great measure compensated, by the hand of art. To 
that evidence we appeal in proof that the promised blessings of 
the prophecy are budding here also with the certainty of much 
fruit, if no untimely frost nips them in the bloom* 

It is by no means easy for those who enjoy the possession of 
all their senses to enter into the feelings or understand the con- 
dition of those who cannot hear or cannot see. Think of a 
being shut up for life in physical darkness, and his state claims 
our commiseration. But the mere privation of sight, deplora- 
ble as it is, is a light evil in comparison with the long and mel- 
ancholy train of ills springing from it and carrying desolation 
and anguish into every moment of an untaught blind person’s 
earthly existence. Even in early chi’dhood there springs up ir. 


his heart a burning but forever unsatisfied desire to behold the 
face and form of her whose maternal voice is music to his ears 
and whose hand ministers to all his wants. The voices of fath- 
er, mother, brothers, sisters, friends, sound in his ears and their 
footsteps are all around him — but a dawnless night shrouds 
those faces and forms forever from his view. The voices that 
fall on his ear are not, however, always the voices of cheerful- 
ness, of kindness, or of love. His condition renders him help- 
less, burdensome, Selfish, and fretful. Inadvertently or pur- 
posely he is often made to hear the harsh sounds of anger, im- 
patience, or peevishness, over the care of so troublesome a child, 
and his selfrespect is constantly wounded by the accents of com- 
miseration over his pitiable condition. Deeming himself the 
proper object of care, of tenderness and of pity from every one, 
such treatment seems unjust and cruel, and only serves to sour 
and harden his heart, and to sow within it the seeds of malignant 
passions, whose fruits, if he remains in ignorance, are to embitter 
all his days. Poverty aggravates all these evils and adds many 
of its own creation to the number, and among the poor the blind 
chiefly abound. In the dwellings of the poor, the situation of 
the uneducated blind is pitiable indeed, and that wdthout any es- 
pecial fault of his friends. Compelled to earn their daily bread 
by their daily labor, the parents and friends of the blind child 
can pay it little attention and from its earliest years it is com- 
pelled to feel all the bitterness and loneliness of neglect. All 
its attempts to walk or to play about are discouraged lest it 
should run into danger. He is habitually thrust into a safe 
corner, and if need be, even tied there, to hinder that locomotion 
which cannot be watched and which may betray him into seri- 
ous personal injury. Accordingly the blind poor seldom learn 
to walk well and often do not learn to walk at all. Their un- 
couth gestures and rude attempts at walking, often excite the 
mirth or the ridicule of the thoughtless. Strange as it may 
seem, few and often no attempts are made to teach them even 
the simplest truths of religion or to give them useful or pleasing 
topics for reflection. Feeble in body and imbecile in mind, they 
are left to brood over their hopeless lot, or to sink into a fright- 


ful mental and physical apathy — hut still alive to the cravings of 
appetite, the gnawdngs of unsatisfied desires, and the disturbance 
of turbulent and fretful passions. Even in this depth of human 
wretchedness, there is, for the blind, a still lower deep. In the 
course of nature that father and that mother, on whbse natural 
affection he has always depended for the sum of his worldly 
support and whose kindness alone has checkered with momen- 
tary gleams of light the dark surface of his existence, that fath- 
er and mother must, with achfrfg and forboding hearts, leave him' 
to the Cold charity of the world — a burden to all, but, ah, a still 
heavier burden to himself. 

Education, in a properly furnished Institution for the blind 1 ,- 
changes this dark but unexaggerated picture into a scene full of 
light and joy. Gloom, despondency and self- distrust are turn- 
ed to cheerfulness, hope and growing self-dependence. The tot- 
tering, awkward gait becomes a firm and assured step. The 
strange, uncouth or whimsical contortions of countenance or 
movements of the body, engendered by vacuity of mind and 
perpetuated by habit, cease where the mind is fed upon whole- 
some, food and the livelong day is filled with pleasing and profi- 
table employment. How great, how wondrous, how delightful 
the change ! Once he sat moping in darkness, loneliness, neg- 
lect and ignorance — now he is a member of a happy communi- 
ty, receiving and imparting enjoyment. Once the crushing 
sense of his blindness filled all his hours with hopeless misery — 
now he is almost made to forget his peculiar infirmity. — ■ 
Blindness interferes with none of his pleasures — it hardly im- 
pedes the onward progress of his education. Rich stores of 
knowledge are poured into his opening mind through the ear, or 
pass thither along the eager and delicate nerves of touch, and 
music breathes its delights around him, created by his fingers or 
fanned into being by his breath. Once he looked forward to a 
life of degrading dependence upon private charity or public 
bounty in some poor-house. Now daily increasing skill in 
some handicraft occupation holds out to him the certainty of 
ample support and cheerful occupation for himself, and also a 
fair prospect of reimbursing his parents in their old age for the 


s 


treasures of love and toil which they lavished upon his help- 
less infancy and childhood. Once, perhaps, in common with 
so large a proportion of the uneducated blind, his feelings were 
morbse, malicious and despairing, inclined to sensuality and 
revenge, and disposing him to draw even from unhallowed 
sources some compensation for the ills of his condition. — 
New, under the genial influence of kind and judicious instruc- 
tion, his heart opens towards his fel!ow-creatufes with affection 
and Confidence — his pleasures are drawn from purer fountains 
— and his hopes brighten towards that WCrld where, atlength, 
the blind also shall see even as they are seen.* 

♦The ensuing instariCe of success in teaching tHe blind' is so strikingly and 
beautifully confirmatory of the truths above presented, that I gladly offer it tij 
£h'eer the hearts of the friendly, and to melt those of tH'e skeptical. 

From the Charlestown Virginia Frie Press. 

As an evidence of the success attendant upon the Institution at Staunton, we 
give below a letter from the Principal, (Dr. M'errillat,) and will add a brief 
account of the subject therein alluded to. In the charitable walks of some la- 
dies of Richmond, Minerva Wooddy, the little girl whose progress has ex- 
cited Wonder and admiration, was found by the Wife of the senior editor of this 
paper in a state of great destitution and wretchedness, and was eventually re- 
rtioved to the Alms-house, as a place of more comfort than the home of" Hfcr 
poor mother, who was compelled to work out and leUve Her blind child at* libctfe 
throughout the day, without an attendant, and often with scanty supplies of 
food and raiment. 

This condition of the helpless one being communicated to the public, contri- 
butioiis were made up by the charitable, and the child was comfortably clad 
and boarded With a neighbor, until, several months afterwards, admission' was 
obtained for her at the Staunton Asylum. So utterly uninStructed had bCen ihb 
poor Child, both physically and mentally, that it Was with difficulty she could 
Walk, and she could scarcely distinguish when it was necessary to ansWer yes 
or no. Indeed, it Was at first doubtful whether she had capacity fbr instruc- 
tion, and it was only upon finding her gifted with memory, that thfe examining 
physician (Dr. Chamberlayne,) pronounced her a suitable subject* for admis- 
sion. She was accordingly sent to Staunton in the winter of 1839, but a delay 
of some months occurred before she was put in charge of the teacher. What 
has her progress been, the following letter will best explain, and tHe benevo- 
lent citizens of Richmond who remember their prompt response to the call for 
aid to the “ Little Blind Girl,” will be able to participate in' the satisfaction 
afforded by its perusal. 

MR. JOHN S. GALLAHER : 

My Dear Sir — I avail myself of fbis opportunity {o giVe Gome 
information of Minerva Wooddy, the young girl who owes to you her admis- 
sion into our Institution. This remarkable girl continues to improve in a sur- 
prising degree. She reads now fluently, and such is the excellence of her 
memory that she can repeat a large number of chapters of the New Testa- 
ment and of the Psalms, which she has learned by means of her touch. Sh's 


10 


The condition of the untaught deaf mute, though seeming- 
ly not so much to be lamented, is really more lamentable than 
that of the blind. To be debarred by blindness from seeing 
material things is a sore deprivation — but to be totally cut off, 
by deafness, from all communion with other minds is a still 
heavier misfortune — inasmuch as the world of mind is of more 
value, and more interest, and more importance, than the world 
of matter. The blind man beholds not the created things a* 
round him. The untaught deaf mute knows not the existence 
of the Creator himself. The blind are debarred beholding the 
varied, the perpetual, the beautiful play of the soul in the hu- 
man face divine. The uneducated deaf mute knows not that 
such a soul exists. The voice of affection may convey to the 
blind a knowledge of a God to be loved and a Savior to be 
trusted. But no efforts of parental ingenuity, brightened by 
earnest parental love, have ever, independent of instruction in 
an Institution for deaf mutes, been able to make known to a 
deaf mute child the existence of God or its own soul — far less 
the work and the offices of a Savior. It is supposed by some 
that the untaught deaf mute may, by his own unaided observa- 
tions and reflections, come to the knowledge of Deity. But 
the contrary is a truth admitting of no doubt. I have read 
books on the subject of the deaf and dumb. I have had more 
than ten years’ experience among them. I have conversed on 
the subject with many gentlemen of the largest experience in 
deaf mute instruction, and of the widest observation both in 

is tolerably well acquainted with history — can parse correctly almost any Eng- 
lish sentence — solve questions in Arithmetic that would put to the blush most 
seeing children, her superiors in age and opportunities— is familiar with the 
Globe and Maps ; but excels, above all, in Music. She sings well and plays 
on the piano with uncommon accuracy, often composing piano accompaniments to 
the songs she may happen to hear. She has made a good beginning at tho- 
rough bass, and assists our music teacher materially by teaching the young be- 
ginners. Music appearing to be her favorite occupation, I intend to qualify 
her thoroughly to act as music teacher ; and if she can fully overcome a cer- 
tain awkwardness — the result of long neglect — she will undoubtedly do great 
credit to our Institution, and you will have the satisfaction of having saved 
from “moral waste” one of the finest minds that I ever became acquainted with. 

Very respectfully, yours, 

J. C. M. MERRILL AT. 


II 


this country and in Kurope, and I have not been able to learn 
a single instance in which an individual born deaf and without 
education has conceived the idea of a First Cause. And it is 
the unhesitating belief of those who are best informed on the 
subject that such an instance has never yet occurred. It is fair 
to infer, therefore, that under the necessity of the case, it nev- 
er can occur. Instances are known in which deaf mute chil- 
dren of pious and intelligent parents, have, prior to education, 
been even admitted to Church-membership, under the fond con* 
ceit that they had become truly pious — and in which those very 
children, after being educated at an Institution for deaf mutes, 
have declared that, all the while, they knew not that a God r .. 
existed, or that they possessed a soul destined to live in a fu- 
ture world. In common with all uneducated deaf mutes, they 
supposed that the exercises of public worship had no object 
beyond the walls of the house, and no end except the sober 
amusement of the congregation. Why they should meet from 
time to time to talk and sing to each other in so singular a 
manner, and why a portion of them should at longer intervals 
distribute to one another small portions of bread and wine, 
are subjects of boundless surprise to the deaf and dumb — nev- 
er satisfied until the art of the deaf mute teacher reveals to his 
mind the long hidden treasures of the Bible. The intellectual 
destitution of the untaught deaf mute is equally great. He is 
acquainted with no written language whatever. Rude ges- 
tures and harsh cries are the only language through which he 
can make known his common wants or his irrepressible emo- 
tions. Shut out thus from all spiritual communion with their 
Father in heaven and from all intellectual intercourse with their 
fellow-beings; the mere creatures of sense and of habit ; abso- 
lutely ignorant of every thing beyond their immediate vision, 
and incapable of understanding the causes or phenomena of 
much that they see and feel, the untaught deaf and dumb are 
prone to become selfish, suspicious, obstinate and morose. 
The springs of life give way, or the sources of health dry up, in 
the absence of hope, and with no high and manly object of ex- 
ertion before them in life. The uneducated deaf and dumb 


die Earlier than those who are taught. Transferred to au Insti- 
tution for their instruction, deaf mutes speedily feel the revivi- 
fying ^influence of the place and of the means used to raise 
them up from their degrading and disheartening inferiority to 
those around them. It is a delightful sight to witness, day by 
day, the lighting up of the mind within, the waking of dor- 
mant feelings, the rapid and beautiful expansion of affections, 
the awe, the wonder, and the delight, with which their minds 
open to the idea of Deity, of a spiritual existence, of a future 
state. How richly the words of the prophecy are fulfilled to 
them ! Contrast their former with their present condition. 
Ages of darkness, desolation, and hopeless sorrow, passed over 
them. The transient glimpses given of them by history reveals 
them to us in a light, most humiliating and painful. Disfran- 
chised, robbed of civil rights, they could hold no property nor 
protect themselves at law from the oppression of the rapacious 
and the cruel. The temples of the Gods were closed against 
them — for their infirmity was considered a special mark of di- 
vine abhorrence. Often the general storm of public odium 
beats fatally upon the hearts of their parents, hardening those 
hearts to stone against their unfortunate offspring — so that while 
the others were fondly cherished, the mutes were driven forth 
to poverty, contempt, degradation and hopeless 'wretchedness. 
The laws of some nations condemned all deaf mute children to 
death ; and the benevolent prohibition of the Jewish Law, 
“Thou shalt not curse the deaf,” is itself an evidence of the 
general abhorrence in which they were held. To curse them 
was a prevailing iniquity, and therefore we find it expressly 
forbidden to the Jews — forbidden by the same voice that sub- 
sequently announced the blessings in store for them and for 
their copartners in human infirmity. The darkness of ignorance 
hovered over the blind, the light of instruction now shines 
found about them. The silence of despair enchained the deaf. 
Sounds of hope and joy now breathe through all their facul- 
ties. Wherever the kingdom, of Him whose coming brought 
good will to man, hath extended, there also hath spread or is 
spreading joy to the deaf and the blind- Their miseries, ace U- 


mulated mountain high in the lapse of ages, are melting away 
before the sun of Righteousness. The deaf hear the words of 
the book — the blind see out of obscurity and out of darkness. 
There hath been “given unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of 
joy for mourning; the garment of praise for the spirit of heav- 
iness.” 

The fulfilment of this prophecy should give joy to every gen- 
erous and feeling heart. 

1. The good citizen and the philanthropist should hail it 
with peculiar satisfaction— for while it adds richly to the sum 
of human happiness, it also acts favorably upon civil society. 

Education improves the happiness and increases the useful- 
ness of every class of men. But the enjoyment and the use- 
fulness of the deaf and the blind are created by education. 
Prior to instruction they are consumers and not producers in the 
body politic. The general fund of human enjoyment is dimin- 
ished by them — and the blind especially add nothing, but sub- 
tract much, from the amount of public wealth. Generally ex- 
isting among the poorer classes of society, they are also often 
found tenants of the poor house, or recipients, in some other 
Way, of public support for life. And even if resident with 
friends and privately supported, the uneducated mutes and more 
especially the uneducated blind, are, through life, a continual 
drain upon the resources of the family or friends, without con- 
tributing aught to the general advantage or to the common 
fund of enjoyment. No community is, therefore, benefited by 
their citizenship or their company — and remaining ignorant, 
they remain a burden to the public, to their friends and to them- 
selves. The hundreds of Virginia blind who now sit moping 
in idleness, dejection and misery in the cabins of the poor — the 
hundreds of Virginia deaf mutes whose energies education has 
not yet called into action, are joyfully affected by the incipient 
fulfilment of the prophecy here. To this Institution all their 
hopes are directed for ability to make themselves useful and 
happy in their day and generation, and for an opportunity, in- 
tended to be the common allotment of the human race but long 
withheld from the mutes and the blind, the opportunity of ma- 


u 

king such preparation as, at length, to exchange this world for 
a world of light and of resounding joy. The heart of the phi- 
lanthropist should swell with gratulation, and the sustaining 
hand of every good citizen should be extended, at seeing this 
load of human misery about being removed, and this sleeping 
mass of mental and physical power in process of being raised 
into active, vigorous, healthful and productive action. Hearts 
now lying dreary, desolate and hopeless, under clouds of mental 
and physical darkness, may look up and rejoice, for the day of 
their redemption draweth nigh. The blind and the deaf may 
stand forth, redeemed from the burden of ignorance, disen- 
thralled from the curse of dependence and helplessness. The 
education of their minds places within their reach the fruits of 
happiness — and a handicraft education lifts them above the 
touch of want. Individuals and Counties, long called upon to 
witness the helpless and hopeless wretchedness of the deaf and 
the blind and to support so many of them in idleness, may now 
expect to look upon the same persons transformed to active, 
cheerful and intelligent beings, earning their own bread, and 
diffusing around them the advantages which always accrue to 
any community from the residence in it of skilful, faithful and 
industrious mechanics. Properly supplied with the means for 
acquiring a handicraft education, the blind and the deaf are 
surpassed by no mechanics whatsoever in the general excellence 
of their workmanship — and they are believed to excel all oth- 
ers in fidelity and industry. Upon their heads and upon their 
hearts come abundantly the blessings which God has annexed 
to sustained and well-directed labor. And upon the State 
which raised them from their degradntion by establishing an 
Institution for their instruction, the blessings of those that were 
ready to perish shall richly descend. 

To every philanthropic bosom it should be a pleasing reflec- 
tion that there is at length a channel through which the bless- 
ings of education can be made to flow to the deaf and the blind. 
An act of the General Assembly of Virginia, assigning certain 
funds to the education of the poor in each and every County, 
declares that the “Object aforesaid,” to educate, viz : the 


15 


poor “is equally humane, just and necessary, involving alike 
the interests of humanity and the preservation of the Constitu- 
tion, Laws and Liberty of the good people of this Common- 
wealth.' 5 A noble sentiment, nobly expressed— and looking in 
its spirit to the advantage of indigent deaf mutes and blind, as 
well as to the indigent of other classes of society. Virginia 
might pour out her funds like water into every County in the 
State through the channels of the ordinary schools and acade- 
mies ; her proposed Common School System might attain a 
success beyond the highest hopes of its most sanguine friends, 
without thereby any more benefitting the deaf and the blind 
than those funds and that system would benefit the children of 
China or Ilindoostan. The peculiar necessities of the deaf 
and the blind demand for their instruction separate and peculiar 
schools — and the establishment of such schools “equally hu- 
mane, just and necessary, 55 should be hailed by every good citi- 
zen and every right feeling man, as the long neglected discharge 
of a duty by the Commonwealth towards two classes of her 
children, whose deprivations and consequent helplessness give 
them peculiar claims on her sympathy, indulgence and sup- 
port. 

2. The Christian should rejoice over the brightening pros- 
pects of the blind and the deal. Scattered over the surface of 
the State are many persons whose sources of enjoyment are 
measurably dried up by the privation of sight or hearing. But 
in their wilderness of sorrow a fountain has sprung up, whence 
may flow for them gushing streams of happiness, causing that 
wilderness to bud and blossom like the rose, filling the mental 
vision of the blind with unimagined forms ol beauty, and ma- 
king the unbroken silence of the deaf vocal with busy thoughts, 
high hopes, and manly objects of exertion. The eye of the 
Christian looks beyond this pleasing earthly prospect to the 
view of heavenly things which stretches out beyond it. Edu- 
cation opens to the deaf and the blind a pathway, trodden be- 
fore by their Savior and sprinkled with his blood, to scenes un- 
seen and eternal. In every County there exist many immor- 
tal beings whose eyes never open upon the word of God and 




whose fingers have never been taught to (race there their path- 
way to heaven. Others exist in equal numbers who, by rea- 
son of deafness, might sit a lifetime beneath the ministry of 
the most eloquent and faithful pastor of the State without ever 
learning that they have a soul, a Savior or a God. The Chris- 
tian sees w T ith delight a school opened into which these be- 
nighted beings may be gathered, and where, with much other 
important knowledge, they may be taught truths which, in the 
hands of the Holy Spirit, may result in the salvation of their 
souls. There, and there only within the bounds of Virginia, 
the deaf and dumb are taught to read the Word of God~there 
only is the Gospel preached to them in their own native lan- 
guage of signs — and there only do they learn to pray in secret 
to their Father who seeth in secret. The Christian beholds not 
on the shores of any heathen land a Mission School which ap- 
peals to his heart more feelingly or more imperatively than this. 
The untaught deaf and dumb are still free from the peculiar vi- 
ces of the heathen— but in mental and spiritual darkness they 
are not surpassed by the inhabitant of any heathen land on 
earth. The burning light of the Gospel falls upon them — but 
it falls like the noonday sun upon a marble monument, leaving- 
darkness, and coldness and corruption within. Every Chris- 
tian heart rejoices to see those minds thrown open by the hand 
of art to the light and warmth and purifying influence of Chris-- 
tianity. Let our sympathies flow freely, bounteously, forth- to- 
wards the heathen of other lands — but, Christian friends, let 
not the blind and the deaf, the heathen of our own State, our 
own neighborhood, our own fireside, be neglected. 

3. Parents should feel deeply interested in furnishing to the 
blind and deaf of Virginia the means of education. 

Fathers! Mothers! it is to you a startling- fact that far the 
greater proportion of the deaf and the blind are not born Such 3 ,- 
but are made so by the diseases incident to infancy and child- 
hood* Think, then, by how frail a tenure your children hold 
these senses which are to them the inlets of knowledge and 
pleasure, and to you the sources of so much delight in wit- 
nessing. their expanding faculties. In a few brief days, dis- 


17 


ease may hush those lips which now thrill your hearts with 
rapture and fill your homes with the happy voice of childhood. 
A few brief days may quench the light of those eyes which 
now look into yours with a depth and singleness of affection 
which no eye but that of a child can ever so well express. 
They may rise from a sick bed. The rose of health may re- 
bud upon their cheeks. And yet among the gratulations over 
the rescue of your children from the grave may come the crush- 
ing conviction that those voices will speak to you no more — or 
those eyes never again look into yours. You will then gaze 
with aching hearts upon those who were once objects of your 
hope, your pride and your joy — now objects of still fonder, but 
yet hopeless, affection, and you will bitterly feel that upon 
these once expanding intellects there now rests a burden of in- 
creasing ignorance which the strongest parental love is utterly 
unable to remove or diminish. Soon, then, how soon you 
know not, an Institution, for the deaf or the blind, may rise 
like a star of promise in the night of your blighted hopes. 
Cherish, then, that which Virginia has established. Cherish it 
in its infancy. Forbid it to languish for want of means to 
sustain itself with vigor. Cause it to rank with the best of its 
sister Institutions in our country, or even to surpass them all. 
Give it liberally all the appliances tor furnishing to the blind 
and the deaf a first-rale education, Then should disease here- 
after lay his heavy hand upon the dearest objects of your affec- 
tion ; should he darken their eyes with a night that knows 
no dawn this side the grave ; or should he hush the voice of 
childhood in your dwelling, and close for life the avenue 
through which parental counsels are wont to reach the intellect 
and the heart — the bread which you thus cast upon the wa- 
ters will return to you again in having thus provided for your 
deaf or your blind children a school which can measurably tri- 
umph over their physical infirmities ; and whence, after a while, 
they will be restored to your arms, disencumbered from the 
burden of ignorance ; rising, buoyant with content and cheer- 
fulness and hope, above the ills of their condition ; once more 
to become the joy, the hope, and the comfort, of the parental 
heart and home. 




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